Cancer, vascular events, and infection—the “Big three”—account for three-fourths of high-harm, diagnosis-related claims

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Candello analyzed approximately 55,000 malpractice claims from the Candello national database to determine how many were attributable to diagnostic error.  

The research confirms that inaccurate or delayed diagnosis remains the most common, most catastrophic and most costly of medical errors. The analysis provides additional context for a 2015 National Academy of Medicine report that highlighted that diagnostic errors result in up to 80,000 deaths annually in U.S. hospitals.

The research was funded by the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) through a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Read the full-text study published in the peer-review journal, Diagnosis.

Serious Misdiagnosis-related Harms in Malpractice Claims: the "Big Three" - Vascular events, Infections, and Cancers

Newman-Toker DE, Schaffer AC, Yu-Moe CW, Nassery N, Tehrani ASS, Clemens GD, Wang Z, Ganai M, Siegal D. Serious misdiagnosis-related harms in malpractice claims: The “Big Three”–vascular events, infections, and cancers. Diagnosis. July 2019. (Published online July 11, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1515/dx-2019-0019 (Article is free access.)